Pages

Monday, December 24, 2012

A Common Sight: This was in August 2012...An unidentified LASTMA official struggled with a commercial bus driver behind the steering wheels

A commercial bus driver, Isaac Popoola, died on Monday [Dec. 24]
after a fierce struggle with an officer of the Lagos State Traffic Management
Authority (LASTMA).

The 54-year-old breathed his last
after the traffic officer allegedly hit his head on a metallic part of the bus
as they struggled for control of the steering wheel.

Witnesses said that the bus left
Egbeda/Akowonjo at around 6 a.m. on its way to Oshodi when a LASTMA patrol van
pulled up in front of the vehicle as they approached Oshodi.

“Two
officers approached the bus and one told the driver to come down and he refused.
So they began to struggle”, a witness said. The bus conductor
ran into the nearby Mosafejo police station, and before he returned, his
driver’s lifeless body was resting in the driver’s seat.

And a little crowd, which had
gathered during the scuffle, had seized the officer. At the Area F Police Headquarters,
Ikeja, Mr. Popoola’s lifeless body
lay in his bus with Lagos registration number XL166SMK. His colleagues and
family members gathered around the bus; the wife’s periodic cry shattering the
stillness of the afternoon.

Popoola, A
sympathiser with the deceased wife, Modupe (right)

“He
is very gentle, humble. I don’t know why the LASTMA man killed my husband. Now
I’m a widow”, said Dupe,
the deceased’s wife, who stated that she was preparing to go to her shop when
someone broke the news to her via a phone call.

“From where will I start? My
children do not have father again. Who’s going to render the help? Very
terrible, I can’t bear it. Who’s going to help me?” Mrs. Popoola lamented.

While naming Adesanya Olatunde and Ogunride
Oludele as some of the culprits, the agency stated that the officers “acted on their own” and flouted
operational guidelines.

“Adesanya was later identified by the Provost Marshall of the agency
and handed over to the police while Oludele,
who was reported to be off duty as at the time of the incident, was still at
large”, Babatunde Edu, the General
Manager of the agency, said in a statement.

“Effort
is on to arrest other suspects connected with the incident”, he added.